You are right on time to get the opportunity to read the third part of my short story "The Bamboo Labyrinth"!
For those who are here for the first time - please, head two these two pages first. It's only natural to start off with part 1. And this way you will get a better idea of the story as a whole and you'll make sure you didn't miss out on anything!
The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 1: Introduction
The Bamboo Labyrinth - Part 2: Delving Deeper
For those of you who already had the chance to check out the first two parts - just keep on reading and enjoy!
*~*
I remember how we, my brother and I were sitting in the back of my father’s car, slowly making our way across a dark and bumpy path, leading straight past the vast number of trees, clearing a way through this ocean of plants and shade in a way perfectly fine for an off-roader like my father's.
It should have been a fairly quiet afternoon, only broken up by the sound of the motor, not roaring up but constantly humming, giving away how it felt not challenged enough by the road we picked for our venture, as well as the occasional scratching along the outside of the windows as we graze twigs and branches along the side that had been reaching out towards us. They left behind a terrifying sound, something that could only come from an unseen monstrosity stalking us, at least in the eyes and ears of my brother at that time. I can still see him in front of my eyes..., how he was writhing next to me as we ventured deeper and deeper into the forest. On that day I felt like being part of one of the older versions of Little Red Riding Hood, slightly even fearing what might happen to us, ignoring that I knew any better and the strange setting it had to it on top of it all.
As I let the events unfold around me I noticed my mother turning to us, she showed a strange smile whilst saying something. Words I can't hear anymore, carefully erased and replaced with silent echoes. Also..., she looks a lot older than she should have been. More wrinkles and signs of age spread out across her face as she keeps on speaking in silence, a tongue never to be heard, yet without distorting it enough so it would become unrecognizable for me. She might look old, but she's still the same.
From that moment on things speed up for a brief period of time. Within mere seconds we find ourselves still sitting in the car, but now standing in front of a large metal gateway. There's a speaker on the side of it, faint rustling and the scratching of feedback the only things that successfully were able to make their way to my ears. Meanwhile my brother kept on panicking on the inside. He tried to play it cool, to pose as the strong one, but you can clearly tell how he suffered on that day..., in that particular moment. Only by having a single look at his eyes it immediately turned crystal clear for me just how frightened he still was. Harmless and frail like an infant...
All of a sudden the feedback from the speakers was broken up and replaced by a brief click before it died down completely. Moments later the gate would open and make way for us to enter this protected little place.
Slowly the car rolled into something that looked like a courtyard. It's size was most definitely decent, but I would have to lie nonetheless should any of you want me to give you any kind of more detailed estimate. Though I can say... it was most certainly green.
Carefully my father let the vehicle creep along the stony surface below, pushing constantly forward, deeper towards something I would have never come to imagine.
The house wasn't bearing too much that I would have called remarkable at that time, so I assume it has been replaced over the years with a mash-up of pictures from all over the world, forming something I would find more suitable for its appearance. The architecture remained to be European, French, British maybe partly German too..., yet the building itself changed shape to something more like a castle than an ordinary house, despite still looking at a wooden front with large panes of glass breaking it up. It even had a tower on its side, a gazebo as some of my British friends would probably call it. Everything else... utterly irrelevant.
The flowers probably blossoming around us? Did not care.
The trees dimming out, letting the sun shine through freely, now even down to us? Did not care.
The neatly trimmed hedges? Did .. not... care...
And why should I really? I was young, never too interested in those, for me, bland things like architecture or gardening. And I can't say it changed too much over the years. Most things I look at either hold some beauty to them, which I admire, or only the lifelessness I regret to have seen afterwards. So I had no reason to keep track of something this trivial to my likings.
As the doors of our car finally opened and our venture came to an end I stepped out into the open, facing a strange new world with faceless people already waiting at the main entrance to greet us.
We step forth without any fear as there shouldn't be any. My mother almost hurried towards them, but only after a soothing gaze of my father rested upon her she gave in.
Quickly she embraced this old friend of hers. A woman at that time not much older than herself, her husband I guess, standing close by her side. My memory slowly falls apart further as it now presents to me my elderly mother dearly hugging a creature..., the shadow of a person maybe, not even bearing a face.
There aren't any words left in this place. Most of them lost track of what happened here and fled to somewhere safer from decay. The treasury of words is a place in our personality where hardly any things are to be discarded or found unworthy of their appointed seat amongst the masses.
And as we proceed into the house itself, the shadow spreads out as wide as it can, covering up pictures on the walls as well as still living flowers decorating the small entrance hall alike. But it all does not matter much as we continue to venture on closer to the core of this memory of mine. None of these idle things, the tapestry or even the people my mother wanted to see are of yet any importance to me.
But just as the darkness grows in intensity, a glow arises, looming beyond the borders of my mind which creates this vision before my very eyes.
It is pushing me onwards and away from the things of no value to me. I by myself am urging me to skip all the pointless distorted chatter I might still come up with and hurry over to the parts I actually want to revisit.
*~*
*click here to keep on reading with part 4*
And there you go. I hope you enjoy today's brief venture into the mind of our, so far, unnamed narrator and I hope for you all to return for part 4 of the story, next Friday.
Have a great weekend!
As always thanks for reading.
Marc, happy about his new chain of LED-lights... they're green!
P.S.: New Kitteh uploaded ^.^
